Tagged with Luke’s Diner

GILMORE GIRLS: A YEAR IN THE LIFE | FALL RECAP

Fall and those final four words.

Lorelai spends a good majority of the last episode of the revival series going on her basic Wild adventure where she finds herself. She’s the book version and not the movie. A purist! Thankfully she doesn’t actually go hiking and most of her struggles are spent fitting all of her items into her backpack. She hangs out with a group of other women one night and they ask her about her struggles. Does she have an abusive husband? A bad divorce? Horrible kid? The answer is no to all of those and Lorelai takes a step back and reflects more on her journey of self reflection.

Ultimately she is able to view some section of actual nature. After she gets past her Parenthood co-stars Jason Ritter and Peter Krause (who’s also her boyfriend in real life) acting as park rangers she has a moment of zen. Clarity. Direction. Answers! She calls Emily and tells her a moving story about herself and her father. A story that Emily asked for months ago and Lorelai botched publicly. This moment makes up for it as it’s one of the better scenes in all of Gilmore Girls and certainly in A Year in the Life.

Back in Stars Hollow, Luke gets a visit from Jess (!!!), who once again is the voice of reason. Jess forces Luke to sit down and talk to him. Luke tells him of his and Lorelai’s communication problems of late. Jess replies with, “Communication problems? Never had experience with that myself.” When Lorelai returns home unexpectedly, Luke is convinced that she is going to leave him. Before she can even say a word he cuts her off and tells her, well, this.

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It’s a great moment. One that feels real and is passionate. Luke saying that needing space is bullshit is also something that I felt rings true. Lorelai is able to stop him and says, “Luke! I think we should get married.” and follows with saying she already booked the date for the wedding. Luke then walks over to a drawer and pulls out his ring for her. “I’ve gotta tell ya, before this thing goes on, the only way out is in a body bag,” he says, holding the ring above her finger. “And now we don’t have to write our vows,” is a perfect Gilmore reply. This should have happened years ago, but it’s nice that it’s finally happening now.

During this we have what I’ve heard many refer to as the highlight of A Year in the Life, but I’m in the minority on this one:

I hate the Life and Death Brigade and the extended Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride inspired number.

gilmore-girls-7For starters, it’s just more of Logan. And Logan is engaged in case you forgot. Also in case you forgot, having affairs is morally wrong and shit and if you were raised with morals like Rory was and you also were already a mistress to another ex boyfriend a decade ago, you really are repeating the past. But anyways, I actually read someone say that “Logan is perfect.” because how romantic of him! He takes across country and surprises Rory and offers her his families house in Maine to write her book in. He’s perfect! You know, besides the whole being engaged part and not really being with Rory. She ended their affair last episode and here he is with his rich brigadiers to painfully exploit the upperclass system that’s always lurked behind the tried and true sweet home town charm of Gilmore Girls. And then they somehow get access to all of the town at night including the rooftops with spotlights and access to Doose’s market amongst other things.

At this point in the revival series I couldn’t get past details like these because I was so tired of the missteps. And have no doubt, deny if you will, but Rory is the worst. These are words from someone who loves Gilmore Girls and has watched the series in its entirety over three times.

Rory refuses Logan’s offer to stay in the house as she knows where she wants to write it, her grandfather’s office that holds the portrait of Rory reading a book that Richard cherished so much in the first season. Rory totally doesn’t refuse the offer to sleep with Logan again though.

gilmore-girls-a-year-in-the-life-emilyEmily is my favorite Gilmore.

At a DAR meeting she stops giving a crap about the polite fakeness and tells some trophy wife the truth and it’s thrilling to watch. Hearing Emily scream out “BULLSHIT!” a few times is also the best. And her line about purchasing some pre-colonial douche had me cracking up. Emily goes to Nantucket with her maid Berta (played by Rose Abdoo who also is Stars Hollow’s mechanic Gypsy!) and her entire family. That’s right, Emily has kept the same maid and her family for a whole year and even brings them to Nantucket with her. She looks at peace in the house there and even in the whaling museum.

She later tells Lorelai in a conversation that she bought the house for twice the listed price because it’s what she wanted. It brought her the joy she was seeking and was no longer able to find in the house that her and Richard built together. She calls the house The Sandcastle.

“The previous owners called it the Clam Shack. I guess ‘Vagina House’ was taken.”

Did I mention that Emily was my favorite?

As she’s telling Lorelai about this her daughter is going to ask her mother to invest in expanding the Dragonfly Inn to another location as well. Emily repeats a few times, “You need to borrow money.” in the middle of Lorelai’s pitch just as Richard did all those years ago when it came to Chilton and Rory. And just like the Friday Night Dinners were born, the new deal is “two weeks in the summer, one week at Christmas” and Lorelai happily agrees to this. Emily even agrees to use the money that Richard wanted Luke to have for his Diner EMPIRE. Later on we see Emily kicking ass working at that whale museum in her white Keds and looking content. I loved this.

 

dean-re-appeared-in-gilmore-girls-a-year-in-the-life-via-netflixBack in Stars Hollow everyone is planning the wedding. Luke reveals a good buddy of his is Kiefer Sutherland when asked who he wants to invite to much joy and disbelief from everyone. Luke asks Jess if he’s moved on from Rory, which he says he has, but when leaving he looks back at the house, and you know that look… You’ve seen it. He still loves her. Or at least who she could be.

Rory literally runs into her first love Dean at Doose’s and asks his permission to write about him in her book which her mother is now okay with in her newfound state of mind, she only offers one line of advice in a sly nod to The Social Network saying, “The Gilmore Girls.” “Drop the ‘the.’ Just ‘Gilmore Girls.’ It’s cleaner.” Dean is hesitant, he’s the father of three with another on the way now. He asks what she’ll say (you know, the whole affair thing again) and Rory says she’ll say that he was kind, and generous, and the best possible boyfriend. “You taught me what safe feels like.” If there is a continuation of Gilmore Girls, and I believe there will be, my gut tells me that Rory screws Dean over and goes into detail about her relationship and affair with him, because Rory. As Dean leaves the store Rory shows him a box of corn starch as a throwback to their first kiss where she accidentally stole a box of corn starch afterwards because she was so excited. Dean’s cameo was short, but it was really nice.

Sookie! She’s returned for the wedding and has made a dozen different cakes for Lorelai, including one that’s full of daisies for those fans that remember that those are Lorelai’s favorite. Lorelai admits that the dream that the two of them had isn’t right without her and she hates doing it alone, especially with Michel leaving soon. I wish there was something more convincing for Sookie having left her best friend and partner behind. And was anyone else confused about the status of her and Jackson? I loved Sookie being able to tell that Roy Choi and Rachel Ray had been in her kitchen too! Also, Rory is able to fit a trip in to see her dad, Christopher and make him feel pretty worthless while dropping a “five by five” Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference so that was cool too.

But that’s not what we want to know about. It’s those last four words, right?

gilmoregirls_final4wordsI’ll totally cover that, but the midnight wedding and the plan of Luke’s with help of Kirk was really wonderful and another one of my favorite moments of the entire series. But those four words…

“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m pregnant.”

And then we cut to black!

I think there’s going to be more Gilmore Girls based off of this. Maybe not, but I’d take those odds. My theory is that it is Logan’s and not the Wookiee’s or obviously Paul’s. However, Logan is going to ultimately pull a Christopher after trying to do the right thing and then Jess will step in. Logan = Christopher. Jess = Luke. Rory = Lorelai. It’s all so on the nose that I hope I’m wrong. But A LOT of this has been retreading previous things we’ve already covered and I’m not confident that it could avoid the same stumbles if it continues based off of Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. But as my least favorite secret society says, “in omnia paratus.”

Besides, I think Amy Sherman-Palladino has her head somewhere else… but I’ll cover that later this week.

What did all of you think about the revival? Were you as let down with Rory as me? Did the repetitive storylines we’ve already covered years ago bother you? What was good? What do we want more of? And besides Logan, what do we (I) want less of? Let us know in the comments below!

GILMORE GIRLS: A YEAR IN THE LIFE | SUMMER RECAP

It’s Summer for the Gilmore Girls and to move some plot along we finally have an appearance from Jess Mariano.

The last episode ended with Rory moving back home proclaiming, “I’m moving home.” So of course Rory spends the rest of the episode denying she’s back when being welcomed by the town that worships her. But enough of the mistress who keeps calling her ex boyfriend Logan even though his fiancé is now moved in, let’s move on to less troubling things, sorta.

gilmore-girls-a-year-in-the-life-summerLike, April! Luke’s kid. Who somehow looks like she’s even younger than she was? She’s wearing the outfit of a 12 year old. Baggy cargo pants with a rastacap. She’s going to MIT and apparently has a social disorder. This is my self diagnosis. She’s trying to play cool, but confesses to Rory she’s faking most of it. Luke then tells Lorelai he gives her money for things like vacationing overseas and she has a somewhat disapproving look. Which I agree with, but nothing comes from this so it’s just a wasted scene. That’s okay though because nobody wants to waste more time with April in a rastacap.

In the town meeting Taylor announces that they’re going to put on Stars Hollow: The Musical. That sounds pretty bad, but that’s only because I’ve become more grumpy over these revival episodes.

That said, the musical itself is one of the few true highlights of A Year in the Life. 

We see rehearsals in the background of a scene later and this is where I got really excited because I saw Bunheads lead Sutton Foster dancing and singing. I thought that may be it for her cameo, but fortunately I was wrong.

Sutton Foster plays Violet (“She was Kinky Boots!”) and gets to shine in the funniest scene of all of the revival series in which she performs the Stars Hollow musical for the Stars Hollow Musical advisory committee. This is one of the only scenes I laughed genuinely and consistently throughout. It’s outlandish and funny and perfect. Although technically it’s wasted time plot-wise, I didn’t mind. We weren’t spending time with April in a rastacap (seriously, why did that scene exist other than to let us know she still exists?) ya know? The musical is a key sign that Amy Sherman-Palladino has not gotten Bunheads out of her system, but more on that later.

Lorelai meets with Michel at the Secret Bar with a logo that’s simply “Shhhh!” with a finger to the mouth to keep quiet. This is one of those weird Stars Hollow things that I love. Lorelai’s fear that Michel wants to leave is confirmed. Michel wants to do more and knows he has the potential to. It’s a nice moment because it shows self reflection on his part and also that his content bickering to do more at the Dragonfly Inn is more because he wants reasons to stay around so he doesn’t have to leave so soon. This is followed by a funny moment where someone yells “Five-O!” when Taylor Doose walks by and the entire bar fold up tables and chairs, turning out the lights as he walks past them!

Back to Rory. Sory. She’s taken over the Stars Hollow Gazette newspaper that doesn’t pay anything! Oh, and cowriting that book with the drunkard Naomi Shropshire obviously fell through, but we knew that was going to happen. Rory running the Gazette is at least a step in the right direction. It’s showing her that she can get back to her roots and basics and hunker down. Of course, I think she literally says that out loud and is doing this because it sounds like something a writer would do instead of doing something natural. Oye with the poodles already…

jess-gilmore-girls-a-year-in-the-life“A cigar. I pictured you chomping a big cigar.” 

With only two hours left in A Year in the Life, Jess finally arrives. And thank the maker he does. In just a couple minutes of screen time he is more rational and pro-active and smart and adjusted than 99% of the characters we’ve been spending time with. The other 1% is Emily. 1%, that’s fitting! Anyways, Jess puts the idea in Rory’s head to write a book about the life of her and her mom. Duh.

When Rory tells Lorelai about the book she doesn’t want her to do it. She doesn’t want people to know she left her daughter in a bucket at a hardware store when she was two, despite being a teenage single parent. It’s like they care more about what people think about what they look like when they don’t realize that they spend too much time thinking about what people think of them. Oh, and we’ve covered how one is a mistress, yet again, and the other drunkingly tells lewd personal stories at her fathers wake, right? Your actions define you, ladies.

Rory later calls Logan to break up, but says to him,“We can’t even break up because we’re nothing.” Yes. Exactly. Move on girl. And Lorelai and Luke reveal that they’ve both been keeping things from one another. Lorelai has continued going to therapy alone (yay!) and Luke hasn’t told her about seeing potential new diner locations. This also feels like familiar territory for the two.

lorelai-unbreakableLorelai is having a slight existential crisis due to it all. As a member of the Stars Hollow Musical advisory committee, she heads to Miss Patty’s to listen to a new song Taylor added to the musical. Lorelai isn’t expecting much as she was the only person who hated the dress rehearsal. How could you not love ‘A Love Revolution?’ It’s hilarious! Instead, ‘Unbreakable’ is a moving solo performance by Sutton Foster’s, Violet. At one point during the performance, the spotlight focuses on Violet and Lorelai making them the only two in the room. Violet is singing directly to Lorelai, who is tearing up at the lyrics that we’ve included below.

I know how everyone else’s life
Is supposed to fly by
Then someone turns and says
What about you?
And I stand here
Mouth open
Mind blank
This should have all worked itself out by now
The map of my life should be clear and precise
With little red dashes and circles so nice
Showing roadblocks
And landmines
Oh, I am not unbreakable
I am breaking right now
Maybe everyone can’t have the dream
Maybe everyone can’t kiss the frog
Maybe it’ll be me and a dog
And the little stuffed dolphins on the floor
And a little dog door
Oh, I am not unbreakable
I am breaking right now
I need to be unbreakable
Somehow, it’s never
Or now

These lyrics and performance are the catalyst for Lorelai to get some answers by going Wild… Of course the other members of the Stars Hollow Musical advisory committee think it’s a dud! Perfection.

How’s it all going to end? What are those final four words? Stay tuned for our recap of the season in which most identify Gilmore Girls with, Fall.

GILMORE GIRLS: A YEAR IN THE LIFE | SPRING RECAP

It’s Spring in Stars Hollow and Rory is a full blown floozy.

That’s right, floozy! Before we dive in, here’s the Winter recap if you missed it. But anyways, floozy! Sure I could talk about Lorelai being conned into therapy by Emily. Or the Stars Hollow International Food Festival with 195 counties (15 of which are participating). Or the fact that we saw Mr. Kim…

WE SAW MR. KIM!?!?!

He was smaller and slimmer than I expected.

But no! Let’s talk about Rory Gilmore. The adulteress, narcissistic, privileged, regressed, educated, depressed, entitled 30 year old.

Her and Logan (MORE Logan? Where the eff is Jess?!) are having lunch and Mitchum Huntzberger of all people drops by and casually mentions that Logan is engaged to a woman out of country named Odette.

I rewound this a few times to make sure.

I was enraged for Rory before this, well, sort of. I mean, she was lying to her mom about seeing Logan. But how dare Logan lie about being engaged? What’s that? He didn’t? Rory knew? And was okay with this? What in the Christiane Amanpour is going on?

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

I’ll tell you something that’s hollow in Stars Hollow. HER HEAD.

This was the nail in the coffin for me and Rory’s character. She wasn’t raised to cheat and lie. Sure, she’s privileged and educated and all of those things, but this level of immoral narcissism turned me fully against her.

gilmore-girls-a-year-in-the-life-spring-rory-chiltonI’ve wondered what it is specifically that did it for me. The adultery? Lying? Or the timespan? It’s all of it. You just shouldn’t do the first two and if you haven’t grown in a decade then what’s your purpose? As a human I mean. As someone we’re supposed to follow as a lead protagonist and feel compassionate about. Why should we care? We watched this character grow up before us. We were there to watch her learn, grow, and experience all of these big life moments as a pseudo parent. It’s profoundly troubling.

Later Rory calls Logan, who’s sleeping next to his fiancé, to actually ask Mitchum for help. Yeah, because that always works out. Did Amy Sherman-Palladino watch the last two seasons she didn’t run? Because this is all feeling very familiar. Rory’s also turning her nose up at writing for a website she hates called SandeeSays after they’ve been trying to woo her to work for them. The fun part about that is that Sandee is none other than Bunheads alum, Julia Goldani Telles. Oh, poor Rory, bless your heart. It’s a good thing you’re going to continue working with the obvious drunk lunatic Naomi Shropshire in a book deal with no contracts that’s surely going to pan out perfectly. I know Daniel Palladino wrote and directed this one, but can anyone tell me that a roomful of writers or even just Daniel and Amy thought this was a good idea and not visible from a thousand miles away? Speaking of seeing things from miles away…

Later at a Chilton alumni gathering she is offered yet another job as a teacher by the headmaster, but once again turns her nose up at that. Sucks to have people offering you jobs! And Rory would be a great teacher too. By far better than she writes. Can anyone think of how analytical her writing would be? It’s disappointing to see this job offer coming from so far away and also how it would be a great choice for Rory. This girl can’t stop tripping over her own feet, something she inherited from her mother.

What else is happening in Stars Hollow besides affairs and stupidity?

Lorelai and Emily continue therapy. Emily sees Lorelai and Luke’s relationship as being roommates and “booty buddies” which is now a favorite thing of mine to say. Emily ultimately quits therapy and tells Lorelai she’s learned nothing, something that she shares with her daughter. I agree with Emily here and think that she’s one of the few characters that is shown as processing and dealing with emotions in a real way and doing something about them instead of just going about her life for nine years doing nothing different. To be fair, that’s what she did with Richard, but that was her life with her partner for 50 years. Their routine. Her life consisted of cocktail parties and DAR meetings. After Richard passed she didn’t and still fully doesn’t know what to do, but she’s doing more than anyone else is to find out.

In Stars Hollow we have a town meeting discussing that there’s not enough gays in town. This sort of felt forced and was weird in our overly sensitive PC environment, but whatever, a town meeting! I love those! Later, Luke and Lorelai go to a screening of Eraserhead at the Black, White, and Red Theatre where Kirk is also premiering his second short film. You can watch his first short film here. The second short film tries too hard to be weird when the first was just weird. That’s probably why it won a Good Try Award obviously. This second one is too much, but I liked the Evil Dead homage when Kirk is burying Petal.

In the movie, Emily calls Luke of all people and wants to meet with him. Turns out that Richard left him money in his will to use specifically for franchising Luke’s Diner into an EMPIRE. Again, we’ve been here before and know how Luke feels about it and so should everyone including the creator of the show so why, WHY are we doing this again?

Maybe things are better over with Rory at this point?

What’s that? She had a one night stand with a Wookiee? Great! Well, Rory continues to do whatever the hell it is she’s doing! What I like about this is that she tells her mother and then reveals that she’s having an affair with Logan and Lorelai says, “If it makes you feel any better, sleeping with a Wookiee is was less sluttier.” Thanks for saying it Lorelai so I didn’t have to. I wanted to this whore article though! And Rory still hasn’t dumped Paul. Who? Exactly.

Stay tuned for my thoughts on Summer that continues to get me heated, but also gives me a revelation.

GILMORE GIRLS: A YEAR IN THE LIFE | WINTER RECAP

Winter is wonderful because it gives you a reason to get warm, but don’t forget how cold it is.

Voices flood a black screen as “the font” of Gilmore Girls appears listing those familiar names. A bevy of emotions emerge as we hear highlights of the seven seasons we watched and rewatched and then rewatched five more times. Then we see the title screen for Winter and snowflakes drop.

Stars Hollow is a winter wonderland, but the soothing sound of Carole Kings “la la la’s” are as cozy as a fire with a fresh pot of coffee. Lorelai and Rory meet at the gazebo as the two catch up. It all connects. There’s a kinetic energy that exists between our leading ladies and the rest of this cast we’ve missed for nine years. You can tell that it’s hard for them to contain their smiles as they walk and talk in that classic Gilmore way.

Winter is written and directed by Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and you can feel it. The show can hit high notes and be very Gilmore, but when she’s writing there’s something special in the mix.

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What’s almost jarring is how everything just slips right into business as usual. In nine years the entire cast looks, well, even better. And Miss Patty is almost unrecognizable! Kirk has yet another business to add to the list, this time an Über ripoff called Ooober. But the bigger news is the addition of his mini pig, Petal. You’ll instantly fall for the guy unless you’re soulless. Taylor is campaigning for a sewer system and gathering septic tank horror stories from the town.

We then hear the familiar sounds of the town troubadour (Grant Lee Phillips singing ‘Winter Glow’) and we’re definitely home again. Luke is working at the diner with that backwards blue baseball cap and alarmingly giving out a wifi password! Just before we question this further he gives out the wifi password again, but it’s different! This is definitely Luke Danes.

Over at the Dragonfly Inn, Sookie has taken a sabbatical because she’s now famous. Lorelai can’t find a chef despite bringing in celebrities that somehow would consider working at this inn, but let’s skip that stuff…

The real catalyst for A Year in the Life is how the leads deal and are affected by the passing of Edward Herrmann who played the pillar of a man in Richard Gilmore. In the show he’d passed four months prior from a heart attack. Emily (the always wonderful Kelly Bishop) is having a hard time adjusting to the loss of her partner of 50 years. It doesn’t help that Lorelai self sabotaged as she does at the her fathers wake. When asked to tell a story of a good memory of Richard in front of friends, including the also always wonderful Ray Wise, who’s sure to show up again. She proceeds to tell a story about being caught in the act of sex and how her virginity card had sailed way before that and this is where I first had a problem with Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. Scotch or not, this just felt so unnecessary and forced.

And if I thought that was bad, I then found out what Rory was up to in London…

I discussed in our Gilmore Guys piece the love interests that Rory had over the years. The least favorite by default is Logan Huntzberger despite doing a lot for Rory. We also discussed her affair with Dean and how she’s hopefully grown since those early days of early adulting. I don’t think that stuck because she’s having a secret “hooking up” relationship with Logan whom she turned down his proposal nine years earlier so she could have her “options wide open” and date this guy Pat, I mean, Paul! His name is Paul. For TWO YEARS they’ve dated! But nobody remembers him. But Rory and Logan even have this rule of “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” and now I want to barf like I just binged at Al’s Pancake World.

This is callous and small of Rory. And this is where I discovered a true dislike and disgust with her as a character that hit me like epiphanies do. In almost a decade she’s sleeping with the guy she denied so she could have her options open and what has she done with her career? Well, she wrote an article for The New Yorker! That’s cool. What else?

Anything? Hello?

Nothing of note. Of course she still has all the money in the world to fly to and from London to Stars Hollow. And isn’t it sad that the poor thing is living out of boxes and can’t find a job? Oh no!

gilmore-girls-a-year-in-the-life-winter-2-roryThis is when I realized that Rory is the worst character on the show.

She’s self-obsessed, aimless, entitled, educated, privileged, and regressive. In nine years she’s not grown at all. When we left her she was getting on a campaign bus for Senator Barack Obama, which was not mentioned at all throughout A Year in the Life. She’s done nothing and learned nothing. And if it took her some time to find her way it sure as shit wouldn’t have taken her this long. Same can be said for her mother; Lorelai should have taken two years max to figure out whatever else she needed to personally after putting Luke through a consistent hell.

I know that’s not always how it works and time is a very bizarre thing. But I can’t identify with people who have opportunity and then squander it for nothing. Maybe they like the drama it brings. I don’t know and don’t care to.

This is where Winter left me cold.

So much was right about it, but Lorelai and specifically Rory are the cause of their own problems. I found it really hard to care for these “problems” when there’s so many real legit issues for other people real and fictional. Growing up is funny like that. What’s evident is that other characters have grown up and done things in this universe. Paris runs a fertility clinic and 20 other things while having kids, Doyle is a screenwriter (meta!), Lane is becoming her mother slowly and surely, Zach wears a tie to work, and Michel is getting restless and planning to adopt.

The disappointment I felt at the realization that Rory is the worst was only going to continue into the future seasons unfortunately… Stay tuned as I get sprung on Spring later.

GILMORE GIRLS: A YEAR IN THE LIFE OFFICIAL TRAILER IS OUT

The official trailer for Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life is out, and it’s got us tingling with glee. It’s the perfect dose of warm and fuzzy for the upcoming holiday season.

Rory, Lorelai and the entire cast that stole our hearts years ago will return on Friday, November 25, for one final season. If you look closely, even Jess, Dean and Logan make an appearance (team Jess!). The four, 90-minute episodes will bring us back to Stars Hollow nine years after we last saw our favorite ladies. Each episode will represent a season: Winter, Spring Summer and Fall. Thank you Netflix for this holiday miracle. Want a refresher? You’ve still got time to watch all of Gilmore Girls from the beginning. Every season is currently available for streaming. In the mean time, check out the new trailer for Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life below:

Kirk at Emily’s! Teapot piggy! Wall-sized portrait of Richard! Taylor in a town meeting! <3